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Kitty Kelley softens tone in new books

As news broke this week that author Kitty Kelley’s next book will be on women in the 113th Congress, fans might have expected scandalous details fresh off the Hill. No so fast, says the author.

“I have to admit, I’m going in with a very positive bias as a woman who genuinely genuflects to women of achievement, especially that achievement — busting into an all-white, male-exclusive club,” Kelley said in an interview with POLITICO.

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The author has become a household name thanks to her tomes on such big names as Nancy Reagan, Oprah Winfrey, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor, Frank Sinatra and the Bush family. The books inevitably unearth some juicy nuggets, get people talking and frequently spark the ire of their subjects — including one that had Ronald Reagan saying Kelley’s 1991 book on his wife “has no basis in fact and serves no decent purpose.”

However, Kelley’s most recent book, “Capturing Camelot: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the Kennedys,” is hardly the kind of juicy exposé readers might typically expect from Kelley. Instead, it is a nostalgic, photo-heavy look at life inside the Kennedy White House. The same can also be said of her next project, “Let Freedom Ring: Stanley Tretick’s Iconic Images of the March on Washington,” which comes out this fall and provides a glowing photo tour of the seminal 1963 event.

“There’s still time for redemption if I live long enough, don’t you think?” Kelley joked.

“Studies have been done showing that there really are gender differences, that women do bring more congeniality and compromise to the table,” Kelley said later. “And I wondered, ‘Will they really? Will it make a difference?’ Congress is the most hated institution in our country, so maybe the women will be the salvation. … Maybe I’ll find out they’re just the same. I don’t know.”

She knows that she could write another unauthorized biography about an intriguing character, but she wants to remain focused on “worthy subjects.” She said she recently was offered $4 million to do a book on Donald Trump but told the publisher, “I’d pay you $4 million not to do it, because I don’t want to invest four years of my life on an unworthy subject.